At Hitek, we are big fans of fantasy in all its forms. We are also eager to see other great works of fantasy adapted for the small screen.
Excellent French fantasy
Even if its finale may have frustrated many viewers, season 2 of House of the Dragon will certainly have been one of the big television phenomena of the year 2024. While waiting for the second season of the series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerwill have to correct some mistakes made in the first season by the end of August, we like to imagine which future fantasy works will benefit from television adaptations. While Hidetaka Miyazaki of the FromSoftware studio recently mentioned a possible adaptation of Elden Ring, It seems obvious to us that a classic of French fantasy has the potential to interest both producers and spectators. This is the cycle Les Lames du Cardinal by Pierre Pevel.
Published between 2007 and 2010, Les Lames du Cardinal is a cycle of historical fantasy, which immerses us in 17th century France, governed by Cardinal Richelieu in the name of King Louis XIII. But in this France, the Siege of La Rochelle was a failure, and the dragoons exist. In 1633, Cardinal Richelieu reformed a group of swordsmen that he himself had dissolved, the Cardinal's Blades, to fight against the Order of the Black Claw.
The cycle, composed of three volumes (The Cardinal's Blades, The Alchemist of Shadows, The Dragon of the Arcanes), has met with great success in France, but also internationally. Translated into ten languages (including English, Spanish, German, Italian and Russian), it was awarded the Prix Imaginales des lycéens in France in 2009 and the Prix Morningstar in Englandof the first novel in English (one of the David Gemmell Prize awards). It has also been adapted into a tabletop role-playing game.
Mixing historical characters, bestiary inherited from fantasy and codes of the novel and films of capes and swords (The Three Musketeers, The Hunchback, The Iron Mask), The Cardinal's Bladeswould make a great series. In addition to the many political intrigues and dragons, which would bring it closer to Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, this series would also allow to surf on the renewed interest audiences for adaptations of Alexandre Dumas, including the dytium The Three Musketeers (2023) and the film The Count of Monte Cristo (2024), produced by Jérôme Seydoux and Pathé.
Did you find this article interesting? Then don't leave us just yet. And discover why this other French fantasy saga could give rise to a small-screen masterpiece if one day it were adapted!